Saudis, Turks invest $1 bln chemical plant

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Economy Minister Çağlayan says business ties with Saudi Arabia are improving. AA photo

Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Petrochemical Company and Turkey’s Bayegan agreed yesterday to invest $1 billion in a polypropylene production facility in Adana-İskenderun on the southern Turkish coast.

The plant is expected to have a 500,000-ton polypropylene production capacity and the project will employ 500,000 people. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications including packaging and labeling and textiles.

“I congratulate all of us on this investment which we can view as the first to be inspired by our new incentive scheme,” said Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan at the joint meeting between the two parties.

Çağlayan said 200 Turkish businessmen had invested in Saudi Arabia so far and that 275 Saudi firms had invested $1.5 billion in Turkey. He said he anticipated these investments would keep growing.